Mechanic visual narrative

Overview

We were instructed to create an 18-panel visual narrative telling the story of a popular game character through a series of images. I selected the Mechanic NPC from Terraria, a game with open-ended but existent lore that rarely gets portrayed in a form outside of text beyond the game itself. The Mechanic is known to have been captured presumably by the Lunatic Cultist and trapped in the Dungeon, an in-game location, forced to construct mechanical pieces that would form a simulacrum of Cthulhu, including a pair of eyes called the Twins, a skull known as Skeletron Prime, and a giant spine in the form of the Destroyer. With only the brain left to construct, the player would defeat Skeletron to destroy the Dungeon Guardians and rescue the Mechanic from the Dungeon as a part of gameplay, later fighting the incomplete mechanical Cthulhu in the form of the Mechanical Bosses. This story instead features various other NPCs rescuing the Mechanic; namely the cursed but knowledgable Guide, the over-five-hundred-year-old Dryad and the exiled pacifist Goblin Tinkerer. The latter is mutually interested in the Mechanic, which I hinted at in the last few panels as they now tinker in the workshop together.

To create each panel I began with a basic 3D greybox of the scene's layout and rough character positioning. This was used as a guide to draw outlines in a pixelated unaliased style with partially chibi proportions (reflecting the pixelated game it's based on). Particularly for characters, aside from Terraria's own sprites, an inspiration point was art by yumnahutoyo for the Mechanic's hairstyle, and art by Bohrokki for the Lunatic Cultist (see footer for links). I also tried to include details like the Mechanic gradually growing older and scruffier while trapped in the Dungeon with longer hair and different proportions. Next, the panels were flatly coloured based on the outlines, with additional colours like small pixel lines and crosshatching on hair and clothes respectively to create subtle texture. Finally, shading was added using transparent layers, with warm and cool colours depending on the scene.